"It is for my Uncle Martin," he said, timidly.

"Do you think he will like it ?" The motherly housekeeper looked at the poor little tree, decked out in its scraps of cast-off finery, and felt a sob rising in her throat, but she held up her hands with many admiring exclamations that made Jules glow with pride.
[Illustration: "SITTING UP IN BED WITH THE QUILTS WRAPPED AROUND HIM."] "I have no beautiful white strings of pop-corn to hang over it like wreaths of snow," he said, "so I am going down the lane for some mistletoe that grows in one of the highest trees.

The berries are like lovely white wax beads." "You are a good little lad," said the housekeeper, kindly, as she gave his head an affectionate pat.

"I shall have to make something to hang on that tree myself; some gingerbread figures, maybe.

I used to know how to cut out men and horses and pigs,--nearly all the animals.